Marvellous Machines at Banbury Museum

We absolutely love Banbury Museum and they have an exciting exhibition on this spring.

An exhibition for all ages that combines curious and quirky gadgets and contraptions from the days before electronics, with modern automata, and all with more than a hint of Steampunk. The automata-mechanical sculptures with clever mechanisms and often humorous ideas – are on tour from Cabaret Mechanical Theatre whose exhibits have recently been enjoyed in China, Korea and the USA. Prepare to get involved as some of these machines need you to get hands-on.

The original gadgets, eccentric inventions and oddities created by Victorian and early 20th century inventors, are from the collection of Maurice Collins.

They include the nose shaper, clockwork burglar alarms, an entirely mechanical teasmade from 1902 (where an alarm clock set off a series of cogs and lit a matchstick to warm the kettle!), and a wrist-mounted 1920s predecessor of Satnav!